


No More Sad Songs

by osprey_archer



Category: Crown Duel - Sherwood Smith
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You’ve earned happiness</i>, Nee had said. <i>I command you to have it!</i> </p>
<p>Nee's command is not an easy one to follow. But Elenet begins to find a way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No More Sad Songs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seawench](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seawench/gifts).



_You’ve earned happiness_ , Nee had said. _I command you to have it!_

If only it were that easy, Elenet thought wryly, leaning out her window to look over Grumareth. She had arrived back on her lands only the night before, having left Athanarel right after Nee’s wedding. 

“But you should stay!” Nee had cried, grabbing both her hands. She was so happy that her face almost seemed to shine with its own light. “Vidanric’s finally set a date for his coronation, and it’s not so very far away; and you’ve hardly been here at all!” 

“I’m sure you’ll be busy with Branaric,” said Elenet, smiling, and Nee laughed. “And I will be back for Vidanric’s coronation, and his...his marriage to Meliara.” 

Nee, blinded by her own shining happiness, hadn’t seen Elenet’s slight hesitation. That, at least, was some relief: Elenet’s love for Vidanric would remain her own secret. 

Standing in her window, Elenet let out a puff of breath, almost a laugh at herself. It was a lucky escape, in a way. Elenet would not have made a very good queen. Oh, she would have been helpful with administration; but she wasn’t warm or outgoing or welcoming, any of the things that Vidanric, so reserved himself, would need his queen to be. 

All things, of course, that Meliara was. 

A lucky escape for Remalna. But for herself, Elenet had a hard time seeing it that way. 

But at least she did not have time to brood about it. She had a thousand little matters of estate to attend to, small things that piled up while she was at Athanarel: boundary disputes to settle, wages to be paid, a plan for a new bridge to consider. Her uncle’s remains to attend to. 

Elenet gave a little shudder. She had not much liked her uncle, who had all but bankrupted Grumareth without sparing a thought to the suffering of their people. But being broken into pieces while frozen as a statue: that was a horrible way to die. 

She closed the window, latching it with a firm snick. She was the Duchess of Grumareth in name as well as in her duties: and she had too many of those to stand about in windows and brood. 

***

But matters of estate, though pressing, could not keep her busy forever. Some weeks later, Elenet found herself in her window again, a letter from Nee crumpled in her hand. 

The letter did not deserve this harsh treatment: it was as warm and kind-hearted as Nee herself, chatting about the work that she and Branaric were doing in Tlanth. It made Elenet smile, reading about Nee’s battles with Tlanth’s poor roads and stubborn ponies, and her cozy evenings with Bran in front of the fire in their castle. _You must come visit us,_ Nee wrote. _The castle is lovely, and Mel has set up a beautiful library here._

And Elenet was proud of herself, because reading Meliara’s name barely hurt at all. 

The postscript, however, did hurt, although that was not at all Nee’s fault. 

_Mel and Vidanric have set their wedding date for the early autumn, and the coronation a week after to allow plenty of time for parties. I look forward to seeing you in Athanarel!_

And so Elenet stood in her window, staring out at the road that led to Athanarel. It wound river-like through the countryside of Grumareth. She followed it with her eyes, imagining herself riding along it, not too many weeks away, to see the man she loved married to someone else. 

Elenet felt a short, sharp pain, fierce enough that she lifted her hand to her heart. But suddenly it was gone. She didn’t feel happy, but she felt lighter, in a way. Vidanric would be married, and soon, and at least there would be no more suspense. He loved someone else, and that someone would make a good queen, and Elenet could move on.

The countryside looked like a painting, Elenet thought, still following the road with her eyes. And then she thought, as she had not thought for a very long time, _I could paint it_. 

Almost before she had finished thinking it, Elenet moved away from the window. She had never painted at Grumareth: she had stopped painting when she left Athanarel the first time, after Galdran had her father killed and her mother had fled to Denlieff and left Elenet behind. She had been so sad, then, that it had seemed impossible to paint. 

But she knew the room that she wanted for her studio, and she gathered up her skirts in both hands and took the spiral stair to the top of Grumareth’s tallest tower two at a time. 

The tower room had not been used in ages. Dust puffed up around her feet as she crossed the floor; it rose up in great eddies as she pushed open the shutters to let in the light, one window at each point of the compass.

That light was why she had picked this room for her studio: the light, and the view on each side, her beautiful countryside visible to the edges of her sight in every direction. 

She leaned out the window and breathed in the air. It smelled of dust, mostly. But beneath that she could smell the scent of ripening crops, growing ready for the harvest. It was a good smell, a summer smell, and Elenet thought, _I have not yet made Nee a wedding present_. 

She did not think Nee would need another fan at Tlanth. But a screen, perhaps…

Yes. A screen showing the beauties of the south, so during the mountain’s long cold winters Nee could look at it, and be warmed. 

The thought of the screen warmed Elenet as well, although it was some days before the painting itself could begin. She worked on it in the early mornings, before the cares of the day could weigh her down, but with painting as with governance, a thousand little things had to be done before the real work could begin. Her screen must be prepared, her brushes clean, her pigments ground; and Elenet insisted on doing it all herself. An artist needed to know her paints inside and out, even if it meant that her wrists ached from twisting the pestle. 

But at last all things were in order. Elenet took up her brush, looking out at the fine haze covering the fields and the pink dawn rising above the horizon, delicate as the inside of a shell. 

_No more sad songs for you either_ , Nee had said. Elenet was not sure that she could paint a happy song, as yet. 

But she did not think that this one would be sad. 

She began to paint.


End file.
